If you have decided to leave the subscription life of Abobe, and are looking around for alternatives and you are using a Mac, luckily you have a lot of options. These days the list of potential candidates for editing your photos is vast, and many have perpetual licenses and can run on windows as well - programs like Capture one, DXO, Luminar to name a few.
But the thing about being in the Apple world is how everything just works, and works seamlessly together. The aforementioned programs don't do that, making them seem clunky in comparison to most experiences in the Apple ecosystem. In my own search for new editing software after moving from Abobe Lightroom Mobile on iPad to a Mac last year, I wanted to utilise Apple Photos as my Library and have it synced with iCloud across my devices.
For photo editing software with Apple Photos integration there are 3 candidates:
- Photomator
- Darkroom
- Nitro
These apps are all available with lifetime licenses at $199 NZD, as well as free trials and monthly subscriptions. I trialed all 3 for a month before purchasing lifetime licenses for Photomator and Darkroom and 'discarding' Nitro. Nitro on paper is probably the most capable but the interface alone was just so far behind the other 2 making it less pleasant to use, especially when everything else on a Mac has nice clean and intuitive interfaces.
Photomator vs Darkroom
After my trials I purchased Darkroom first. It just clicked initially as being the most user friendly and having all the features I needed. However, I kept going back to Photomator as it has quite a few neat additional features, and once I had used it for a little while I found it equally easy to use. Since then I've been using both and after a few months I haven't been able to determine a winner overall. Instead these apps both excel at different things and different uses. Read on to find out how each one may suit you and your needs best.
For all screenshots Darkroom is using the white interface, and Photomator is using the dark interface.
Standard features
This is a comparison overview rather than in-depth of each one, so let's get out of the way the fact that these 2 apps both share a pretty standard suite of photo editing tools you would expect to find anywhere, and that will be immediately apparent once you open the apps the first time when you start a trial. Things like exposure adjustments, cropping, colour mixers, colour wheels, curves and levels, masking etc are all there. There are some subtle differences within those that I will highlight as we go.
There is one standard feature both are missing and that is proper white balance tools. Both apps have temp and hue sliders and that is all. No WB presets and no colour temp settings.
As mentioned earlier, both apps integrate with Apple Photos and both apps will need to import the images (into apple photos) to edit them. If you are using them on an iPhone, your photos will automatically end up in Apple Photos of course.
Winner: Tie
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| Darkroom app interface |
User Interface
How an app looks and is laid out is important to some and is why I favoured these 2 apps over Nitro. Both apps have nice clean interfaces, with darkroom probably being just a little more polished. Both apps have their tool panels down one side (and you can swap sides) but where they differ is that Photomator has all tools in just one continuous column where you have to scroll down to find a tool. You can tidy it up a little by minimizing unused tools. Darkroom breaks the tools down into sections so you can jump quickly to the section you need. Both apps allow you to change some of the colours of the interface.
On mobile both follow the same interface as their Mac counterparts except the tools move to the bottom of the screen. Photomator still keeps all tools in the single section with lots of scrolling required, but at least you can increase the size of the tool panel to about half the height of the screen but at the expense of your image becoming smaller on screen. Darkroom's tool panel is a fixed height but somehow seems more spacious and made even more so by having a horizontal selection bar to switch between the sections of tools quickly as opposed to scrolling. It’s probably a wash between their respective interfaces - both are clean and well laid out with similar sets of tools, and I doubt this will be an area that weighs on the decision between them at all.
Winner: Tie Both are great and it comes down to personal preference.
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| Photomator app interface |
Performance
One of the most important factors. Many people complain that Lightroom Classic is slow and clunky these days, so on modern Apple Silicone using native apps you expect nothing less than great performance. I've been editing 102MP medium format RAW files and 61MP Full frame RAW files with these apps which is about as much as anyone is ever going to do to stress them.
Photomator is fast and snappy with loading images, making adjustments and exporting. No issues here and mobile is equally fast. During long operations such as bulk edits and de-noising it provides a progress indicator so you know it’s working and not struggling.
Darkroom on the other hand has poorer performance. When editing the larger files there is some lag when loading images initially and sometimes when making adjustments, most notably on 102MP whereby the effect of moving a slider does not reflect instantly when moving sliders back and forth. Performance with 61MP was fine despite a small lag here and there, and this is probably as much resolution as most people would ever use, I would say perfectly usable at that file size. I’m working with compressed RAW's and I can’t say I’ve done any testing to see whether it has anything to do with having to un-compress or whether it’s just the amount of data it has to handle. Smaller files such as 24MP are no problem at all.
On mobile it gets worse, Photomator once again runs great but darkroom lags again and then crashes 100% of the time when exporting from large raw files such as 61MP or 102MP, even on a iPhone 17 pro max so it’s certainly not the hardware. There was supposedly a recent update to fix this but it didn't.
Winner: Photomator Perfect performance is what I expect from a Native Apple App and that's what you get.
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| Library views comparison |
Workflow
How easy and efficient something is to work with is vital. Once you have a nice intuitive interface and good performance the next aspect is features that help with your workflow - essentially quality of life features. I've broken this down into sub-sections from culling to export.
Reviewing and Culling
For reviewing and culling, Darkroom has an edge because you can view photos full screen and scroll through whilst being able to flag or reject them. By comparison Photomator is not as fast. To do the same reviewing and culling process as Darkroom you would need to have the filmstrip enabled when viewing photos, and right clicking on the photo on the film strip to open a menu to then apply a rating - but it at least has 2 rating systems, 1-5 stars or flags (Darkroom is just flags) On mobile, the process is the same for Darkroom but with Photomator you can only apply rating from the library and not when you have an image open.
When wanting to view an image in its original state, in Darkroom you just press/click and hold the image to toggle the view whereas Photomator needs you to press a button to toggle on the review mode. On Photomator mobile it activates a slider on the image so you can compare that way.
Winner: Darkroom No contest, reviewing and culling is so much faster.
Auto adjustments and Bulk Edits
Both apps can copy and bulk paste edits. Photomator goes one step further with workflows. These are automation's you can configure then add to your quick menus for easy access. For instance if you so wish, you can set it to automatically adjust exposure or apply a preset, auto straighten, auto crop, de-noise, de-band and export, all from one click and you can do it as a bulk operation too. Can be a good way to speed up workflow for some shoots. Workflows are not available on the iPhone app.
One significant difference is that Photomator has auto adjustments via so-called 'Machine learning'. Not just for exposure and colour, but for cropping and straightening too. Then you can actually turn the auto adjustments on or off by each individual tool also. This makes fast edits easy as the auto adjustments, although not amazing, can at least get you part of the way there. Darkroom has no auto modes at all.
Winner: Photomator This is a non-contest with auto modes and automation's.
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| Photomator workflow options |
Exports
It's worth noting that my workflow may differ from yours. I import RAW's into Apple photos, then edit and export HEIC's into Apple Photos then delete the RAW's (I keep them on my SD card for a while) . I also use Apple photos as my library to organise and manage my photos. Both apps can save their current edited RAW's within Apple photos so you can go back and edit / re-edit later.
Darkroom has basic export options; you can select export file type and quality. There is no re-scaling option which is a pain when dealing with huge RAW files as I don't necessarily need the final image to be just as huge. The exported files on Mac and iPhone saves directly into the Apple Photos Library.
Photomator has more export options and you can have pre-configured different ones saved as workflows. You can resize as well as change format and quality. On Mac it does not save the exported image to Apple Photos as far as I can figure out, so I have to export to files then import into Apple Photos. On mobile it doesn’t have this issue as it automatically brings up the iOS menu where you select 'save image' to save to the Photos Library.
Winner: Photomator Being able to re-scale on export is essential.
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| Export options comparison |
Editing
Being able to work smoothly and efficiently is vital, yes, but it's not particularly useful unless the core function of editing images is excellent too. I've broken this down into smaller sections:
Cropping
Cropping is another area where the apps differ somewhat. Photomator has auto cropping whereby it use machine learning to suggest a crop, as well as auto straightening. For manual cropping you are limited to a handful of basic aspect rations. Darkroom has no auto-anything, however it does have a long list of available aspect ratios that you can crop with, including X-pan!
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| Cropping options comparison |
Presets
Editing workflows often start with a preset first and then fine tuning from there. I don’t personally like using built-in presets/filters/looks, but there are plenty of people who do for the creative looks they provide and fast editing aspects. Both apps have a solid set but Darkroom has the edge as there are a tonne of user presets online that are easy to add to the app. Photomator not so much and as far as I know, importing Lightroom presets is no straightforward task. But, Photomator does have LUT's which is a bonus, and those are more universal, easy to find and easy to import. Then you can make them into Presets too. Darkroom is promising LUT support in future.
Winner: Tie Darkroom's community presets equal out Photomator’s ability to use LUT's
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| Preset selectors comparison |
Sliders
The common next step of editing is exposure sliders. Both apps have a similar standard set, but their behaviour is slightly different.
Darkroom seems to have limits on their sliders. I've had a number of instances where I have maxed a slider and been surprised that the adjustment range is so limited. For example I recently took a set of photos that I deliberately underexposed by 2-3 stops and I maxed out the exposure slider at 200 and it still was not enough. I think this is a deliberate move by Darkroom to put 'guard rails' on their sliders that make it possible to utilise the full latitude of the sliders and still have an acceptable image, whereas normally the extreme ends of sliders would destroy an image. This is a pro or a con depending on your point of view. On the development road-map it lists 'unrestricted curve editing', I'm not sure if this will apply to just curves or sliders as well.
Photomator is a bit of the same actually, however in the settings you can enable 'extended values' that give adjustments far more latitude, so you can basically remove the guard rails.
Whilst adjusting sliders, Histograms are useful. Both apps can choose between Luminance and RGB histograms. I particularly like the Darkroom one as it's easier to read and it has clipping indicator messages built in.
Winner: Photomator Purely for the ability to expand their latitude with the extended values feature.
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| Darkroom adjustment sliders |
Masking
Often sliders aren't enough to get the exposure right and you need to localised adjustments. Easy to use, accurate masks are essential for many types of photography. Photomator creates masks as layers but in reality it's no different to how masks behave in other apps.
Masks that both apps provide:
- Linear gradient
- Radial gradient
- Subject
- Color
- Background
- Photomator: Sky
- Photomator: Brush
- Darkroom: Luminance
- Darkroom: Foreground
- Darkroom: Depth
Winner: Photomator Sky and Brush masks are two of the most useful mask types full-stop. Darkroom's masks just can't achieve the same level of precision and speed though Brush masks are on their road-map.
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| Sky masking comparison |
Other Features
Darkroom
- Bloom and Halation Sliders
- White Level slider
- Larger number of crop aspect ratios
- Ability to edit video for exposure and colour
- Luminance and depth masks
- Add and customise frames during editing
- Actively developed and updated
Planned on road-map as of April 2026
- White balance tools
- Retouch tools
- Brush masks
- unrestricted curve editing
- LUT support
Photomator
- De-noise
- De-band
- Auto adjustments
- Auto straightening and Cropping
- Automated workflows
- Super Resolution
- Match Colour
- Replace Colour
- Selective Clarity
- Extended values for sliders
- LUT's
- Healing Brush
- Re-scale at export
- Brush and Sky masks
Winner: Photomator Currently it's not even a contest on the features front. De-noise alone carries a lot of weight here and other things like brush and sky masks, automations and selective clarity are really very useful - what Darkroom has that Photomator doesn't is nothing significant.
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| Photomator de-noise |
Image Output
This is possibly the most important one and yet will be one of the smallest sections as it is entirely subjective.
I have edited whole sets of photos on both apps in two different ways and compared them:
- Editing on one app then immediately on the other, doing similar adjustments including colour, to try and achieve the same output
- Editing photos in each app on different days with fresh eyes as though its a fresh edit to produce a pleasing image.
I cannot explain why, but Photomator to my eyes always produces a 'better' image overall, with more pop and better colours. Viewing images in isolation both look great, but when viewing side by side the difference was stark. Highly subjective though.
Winner: Photomator Images always look better to me, or perhaps that level is just easier to attain than with Darkroom.
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| Mobile interface comparison |
Mobile apps and Cross device functionality
Purchasing an app that you can use on different devices (Mac, iPhone, iPad) provides great value, and combined with Apple Photos integration and iCloud, all imported and exported images automatically sync across those devices. That's not enough though - for this to be truly of value you would want to be able to start editing on one device and finish on another, and to be able to view and alter edits that were done on the previous device. If you use Presets you would want those to sync too.
Darkroom works wonderfully cross-device. You can edit a photo on one device and then on another and then back again as fast as iCloud can sync. It’s not just the saved image but all the adjustments are visible too, and presets saved on either device carry over as well.
Photomator does work cross-device, you can edit a photo on one device and then another, same as Darkroom along with the adjustments. Presets seem to be a hit and miss as to whether they sync - a preset I saved on mobile synced to Mac but not the other way round. In addition, LUT's in photomator don't sync, you'll need to manually add them on each device.
Winner: Darkroom It just works and works exactly as you expect.
Support and updates
Photomator hasn’t been developed for a few years since Apple purchased it. The app does update occasionally to support new cameras though as I received one recently. Darkroom is being actively supported and updated. There are a lot of missing features that are in the pipeline to be added and I expect within a few years for it to surpass Photomator. Check the link above to see what's coming.
Conclusion
The overall winner isn't as cut and dried as this seems. Yes, Photomator looks like the clear winner right now - it has better performance and features, is faster to use and produces better images. When I break it down like I have done in this post there is no contest. On the other hand, Photomator is basically a dead app that will never receive any new features and it could be a different story a year or two down the line as Darkroom does regular updates and adds features.
Like with most things it depends what you are using it for. We also have to remember that these apps are designed just as much for people shooting and editing on an iPhone as they are for photographers hunched over a computer editing for hours. I would say Darkroom is better for the former, and Photomator better for the latter.
Overall winner: Photomator
Thanks for reading and I hope you found this useful. I still recommend running trials of the apps to see what works best for you, and that includes Nitro if you don't mind the interface. If you are reading this a few years down the road I'm sure it will still be useful - just mentally cross off the differences as and when Darkroom gets feature parity!
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